Our relationship with animals

I have an online friend who is very adamant that animals shouldn't be pets. What are your thoughts about this? I sometimes look at overfed, under exercised pets and agree with him, but surely our relationship with dogs, horses etc is now a co-dependancy and can have some very positive outcomes?

Thoughts?

they are still animals .......although for some people maybe replacement kids .......can't believe the number of animals that have facebook pages and people actually friend them..........

sorry i love animals and pets but in the end they are animals.........

I think in a vague, not fully thought through way, I think it's pets in cages that I have a problem with.
Though I guess that has grey areas - I'm not sure what I think of e.g. rabbits that are only caged at night.

And I would count a fish tank as a cage.

Birds in cages really upset me.

What exactly is your friends issue with it?  Is it the antromophasising?  Or that pets are abused, whereas working animals (for example) are not because they are useful?  Or that animals are animals and shouldn't be kept in the house?

I always cringe when I see dog lovers letting their pets lick them on the mouth. This stems from an incident from when I was a kid when a dog which had been following a couple of us around gulped down a massive steaming turd my mate had just laid. That'll put hairs on your chest Fido.

My goldfish, Beckham, is the best friend I ever had. I love that guy. And I know he loves me.

RicF wrote (see)

I always cringe when I see dog lovers letting their pets lick them on the mouth.

  Me too - it really makes my flesh crawl. 

Pets in general I don't feel either way about, as long as they are well-treated and cared for. 

Dressing dogs/cats up and so on makes me wonder whether the owner is looking for a child substitute rather than a pet.

I don't have a problem with pets so long as they are well cared for.   I don't really have a problem with people letting dogs lick them or people who dress their dogs up either. I think there's some research showing people that grow up with pets are less likely to suffer allergies, asthma etc when they are older - and they are good for reducing stress apparently - though I don't think that applies to dogs like our youngest one the little ****.

I have a problem with people who treat their dogs as children, but I think there are many good reasons for children to grow up keeping pets. Also, dogs make a valuable contribution to society as long as they are properly trained and understand their place in the pecking order. We have a group of therapy dogs near to us, they and their owners regularly visit the old folks home and bring a bit of enjoyment to the people there. Guide dogs for the blind and deaf - what a joy they are for their owners. Police dogs - working in partnership with their handlers. Rescue dogs digging buried people out from disasters. I was 11 when we got our first dog in the family and she helped a shy girl make many friends.

it is a bit sad to anthropomorphise animals or treat them as children but some of us arent lucky enough to have a family, so a wee dog or something is the next best thing. but i do take the point.

my dog is good company for me and though he is still an animal he is my family.

I have a problem with people who treat their dogs as though they are human. Friends have done just this and as a result the dog doesn't get the pack order and has snapped at my youngest daughter.

My dad was very anti pets; the sort who thought the only dogs that people should have were working dogs. We eventually got a cat when I was about 14, dad always acted like he had no time for it, but when he thought there was no one else around you could hear him talking to him and playing with him. The cat always seemed drawn to my dad.

We have (two kids), a dog and a cat. I talk to the animals all the time, I love them, they're great company in a different sort of way from people company.

I do get annoyed with people who own dogs but don't walk them enough and / or over feed them. Also, dogs do have to know their place, we're still working on this one though as our dog definitley thinks he's one of the kids 

i have 4 cats. I don't see a poblem with having 'pets'. Maybe it's the concept of pet. Cats are always the boss. Though I do have rules and non apart from the newest cat we have has ever broken them.

I don't allow the cats on the kitchen work surface, only the most recent member of the family has gone up on the work surface and he gets told off every time he does.

I don't think humans are any better than animals. My cats are equal - in rights - they get love warmth and food. They have a home in which they can feel secure and be free from harm or injury.

My cats don't get fed human food apart from fish and chicken. They don't ever get fed scraps from our plates.

I think cats are different to dogs. They don't need to be told the pecking or pack order. They just learn and my cats certainly never push the boundaries. Much as everyone says that it's cat's that own the human, I don't think it is.

Humans have kept animals as pets for thousands of years. As an example, look at the remote tribes that have existed around the world, far away from the Western idea of keeping pets, yet whenever contact was made they had animals kept as pets. What has changed is that some people seem to have become so disconnected from the reality of nature that they have lost sight of the fact that we are top of the food chain and the dominant animal on the planet, and for some strange reason they seem to think that this makes them more enlightened than the rest of us!

I do my best, but it's very difficult with some of you.

or is that dog and fish